Letter H - H is for Hippo (Zoo Fun)

Daily Learning Notebooks:

 - Alex: 1+1+1=1

 - Jackson: Confessions of a Homeschooler

LDS Scripture Verse:  "Honor thy father and thy mother." - Exodus 20:12

MONDAY

Our scavenger box this morning consisted of Jack's Luigi hat, a hammer, a hippo, Harold the helicopter, a horse, Captain Hook, our foam letter H, our H sign language card, and a My 'h' Box book.

After reviewing the H sound, looking through our box, and reading the book, the boys used our Bingo markers, regular markers, and small stickers to decorate their hippo coloring pages.  I was going to do patterns with our small stickers on the backs of their coloring pages, but they weren't interested. :/

I worked with Jack on pencil grip for a few minutes; while he waited for us, Alex decided to grab some Lego bricks to stack on the foam letter H.

Jackson wanted to play with the Legos on an H, too , so I pulled out the foam letter I and turned it sideways.  We laughed at the "short and fat" H, but Jack still enjoyed doing Lego patterns on it.  After cleaning up, I pulled out our apple large floor numbers.  Alex asked to set them up himself, so he propped them up around the room for us to find.  This activity is a good energy burner.

Then we settled in for our educational video.  They chose Leap Frog Letter Factory, which I bought from a neighbor for $2.  Awesome deal!

TUESDAY

I decided to continue doing Montessori-type trays this week.  Today I set out six different stations, using my trays from Oriental Trading Company:

Tray 1:

Alphabet play dough mat with dry erase markers.

*The lady that made these has a few different options for how to write some of the different letters.  There was only one H choice, however, and I realized as I set it out that I would probably teach it doing both vertical lines, first, before the horizontal line.*

Tray 2:

A collection of toy animals that you might see in a zoo.

Tray 3:

A flatward caddy from IKEA with some colored straws for fine motor practice.

Tray 4:

African animal vocabulary page (click on printables) with magnets.

Tray 5:

Heads and Tails matching card game

Tray 6:

Cutting practice

And then they were off!  Alex headed straight to the straw activity and put all the straws in the bottom.

The Heads and Tails matching game was the most popular activity of the day, however.  Alex and I played a game where I had all the tails and Alex had the heads.  I would put a tail-card down and he would match it with a head-card.  I did that game with Jack, too, but then he progressed to playing it on his own.

Jackson wasn't too interested in the straws, until I began playing with them and showing them how to put the straws through the holes sideways.  Jack really got into it, then.

Alex needed a few reminders about proper scissor grip - and how we don't walk around with scissors - but he spent a few minutes cutting quietly.

The boys played with each activity for a good period of time.  After they began to tire of the trays, we set up a "zoo" with our animals and IKEA car rug.  We discussed where each animal needed to live (polar bear by the igloo, hippos in the water, camels in the dessert, etc...), and then drove our cars around the "zoo," saying hello to each of them.

WEDNESDAY

We spent more time together during "Calendar Time" today, which was actually really nice.  We reviewed all the letter sounds, counted to 20 together (although Jack likes counting to 100, as well), and sang a few more songs, in addition to our normal activities.  I need to be better at having a more focused Calendar Time.

Our first activity of the day was a beginning sounds worksheet from The Measured Mom.  The boys used Bingo markers to color the pictures that start with the "h" sound.

Then we moved to the floor for a fun Animal Movement lesson.  We had three category cards (Climb/Walk, Swim, and Fly) with pictures, and then different kinds of animals for the boys to sort into one of the three categories.  After establishing the purpose of the game, I gave the boys one card at a time and they did great!  I really didn't have to help them figure many out.  They had fun, and we used the answer card for them to self-correct.  It was a great activity!

Then we headed to the kitchen table for some Montessori-type activity trays.  I tried to put together some trays that could relate to caring for an animal (like at a zoo), and here is what I came up with:

Tray 1: Animal Clean-up

The pom-poms are spilled out, and the little hand-held broom is used to sweep up the mess and dump it into the little "garbage can."

Tray 2: Providing Water

The boys used the 1-cup measuring cup to pour water into the little containers.  A sponge is provided for clean-up of spills.

*I just discovered this website that has lots of great materials for Montessori lessons.  I am in love!  Look at how cute those little pitchers are! This might be my classroom splurge for next month.  ;)*

Tray 3: Animal Habitat (Movement Review)

I found these cute little glass containers for $1 apiece at our grocery store the other day - had to get them! I put water in one and some dirt/bark in the other.  I brought down a small container of animal toys for the boys to sort into land or water.  I told them they could use their hands to transfer the animals, or they could use the little tongs.

Tray 4: Food Prep

Animals need to be fed...and so do little boys...so we combined snack time with tray time.  I peeled the banana and then showed them how to cut it using the plastic knife.  They each cut up (and devoured) a banana.

The banana was the favorite activity in the beginning, mostly because they were both hungry.  They also really enjoyed the animal habitat activity.  Alex pretty much stopped at that point, but Jack finished up the other trays and ended up really liking those, too!  He even asked to practice pouring again, later.

THURSDAY

It was supposed to be in the 50s today...very unusual weather for this time of year.  I had planned on taking the boys out to a farm to enjoy some outdoor activities before the snow comes, but when we woke up it was snowing!  Farm field trip - cancelled.  The boys really wanted to play in the snow, so we all bundled up, but by the time we got outside the snow had stopped! Good grief!  We still had fun running around and throwing tiny snowballs at each other. 

A little while later I took the boys to Story Time at the library.  They were super wiggly, so we went out to the bookshelves and found books to read together.  Then we went outside and played Hide and Seek for 20-30 minutes.  We had so much fun! Even Alex took turns counting finding, although he never closed his eyes while we ran off to hide.  

Yes, this is still the same day.  Snow in the early morning, warm and sunny in the late morning.

School was put off until late afternoon, and I was already starting to feel the pull of Christmas Break.  I love doing school with the boys, but it will be nice to take a little break.  Our activities were a little more sporadic:

 Jackson did his letter hunt worksheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Then his Letters of All Sizes worksheet from The Measured Mom.

Then we set up a few activities:

Activity/Tray 1: Hippo Number Tracing

Activity/Tray 2: Heads and Tails Puzzles (again)

Activity/Tray 3: Animal Movement Sorting (again)

Activity 4: Puzzles

Both are Melissa and Doug, wooden African animal puzzles. One is a chunky puzzle for younger kids, the other is a more difficult puzzle for older kids.

Activity 5: Recorder Music Practice

I found my recorder in my college/teaching box, so I HAD to pull it out! The boys love to walk around, blowing into it.  Fingering is non-existent, but we are a music family so I love introducing new sounds and instruments to them.

SATURDAY

We ended up doing our last day of school this week on Saturday.  Jackson completed his H handwriting page from Confessions of a Homeschooler.  I've been reminding him about the "proper" way to hold his marker, as you can see in the picture.

Alex, meanwhile, worked on this cute tracing hippo page from Leap Frog.

I found a pack of zoo animal rummy cards (that I've had for a LONG time), so the boys and I pulled those out to look at each animal card.

All together, we made a hippo using Erica's cut and paste page.

My mom bought Jackson a set of animal hand puppets awhile back.  I brought those out and put together a little puppet stage using a tension curtain rod, a sheet draped over it, and a school table propped on its side.  The boys weren't quite sure what to do, so I started demonstrating some puppetry, laughing at the memories of my Drama for Elementary Education college class where we had to make various hand/sock puppets and learn the techniques of puppetry.  It turns out it was useful, after all!

Jackson liked to just make the animal noises.  

Alex did not have a lot of patience during this activity (as you can see in the video below). (Apparently giraffes neigh, according to Jack. Ha ha!)

Alex, however, tried to copy my 2-animal show with interaction, although his was much shorter.  They had a great time!

This kid cracks me up!

And we ended the week reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and putting our letter H on the coconut tree.

Letter G - G is for Goat (Farm Fun)

Daily Learning Notebooks:

 - Alex: 1+1+1=1

 - Jackson: Confessions of a Homeschooler

LDS Scripture Verse:  "Go ye therefore, and teach all nations." - Matthew 28:19

MONDAY

Our scavenger box for today included our foam letter G, a pair of glasses, Goldfish crackers, a girl, gum, something green, glitter glue, a picture of grandparents, our g sign language card, a glass, a goat, and our My 'g' Sound Box book.

The boys used our markers to color a goat page from dltk-teach.com.

We have not used our apple large floor number cards for awhile, so I pulled those out for some number review.  I laid them out in a circle and called out a number.  The boys ran like mad to find the right card, then counted the apples on the tree before we jumped as many times as the number on that card.  They still love this one!

We used our colored popsicle sticks today for pattern practice.  I began different colored patterns and had the boys help me finish.  Jackson also started using them to make numbers and letters.

Reading Books:

1. My 'g' Sound Box by Jane Belk Moncure

2. The Little Red Hen illustrated by Lucinda McQueen

3. Farmer Patrick Pig by Richard Scarry

TUESDAY

Today was a little different.  I have really been getting into the idea of Montessori education, mostly learning through play and education guided by the children.  Today was my first attempt at using such ideas and I used multiple resources to gather info.  1+1+1=1 talks a lot about Montessori play in her Tot Tray posts.  I finally ordered some of the craft trays from Oriental Trading Company, but used some big Christmas charger plates (purchased from Tai Pan a few years ago) for the time being.  I'm still a newbie to Montessori, plus I have a preschooler to teach, as well, so I tried to combine some more Montessori play activities with our normal activities for our stations, or trays.

After notebook time, we started out together with Jack learning correct letter formation on our G playdough mat (tracing the letters using his finger and then our gel bag).  Alex played with our foam G for a few minutes before I pulled out the play dough, our G wooden magnets for stamping, and some glass gems to put in the play dough (both ideas found on 1+1+1=1).

After we finished reviewing letter G formation, I briefly introduced each activity/station and then explained that they could play with whatever they wanted to, as long as the other person wasn't already there.  Then I let them go!  Here are the six stations I put together for today:

Station 1: Cutting practice

 I put a few strips of paper on a "tray" along with our awesome kid scissors.

Station 2: Sticker Play

I pulled out the farm page from our Melissa & Doug Reusable Sticker Pad set.

Station 3: Magnet Play and Vocabulary Review

I made some quick magnets a little while ago, and these are our new go-to magnets for magnet play time.  I printed out the farm vocabulary from Carissa's Letter G Tot School Printables to use with the magnets.

Station 4: Building with Popsicle Sticks

The next two activities were found on Gift of Curiosity.  In this activity, the boys needed to build a pen for the horse using large popsicle sticks (I decided to use the jumbo sticks for this since Alex's hands are so small).

Station 5: Egg Flipping (Life Skills)

This activity practices flipping an egg.  I glued a yellow construction paper circle in the middle of a yogurt lid and let the boys practice flipping it.  I didn't expect them to spend much time here, but I decided to include it, anyway.

Station 6: Patterns and Letter Formation

I threw this tray together last minute, for the boys to make patterns with the glass gems on the foam letter G.

The boys REALLY like the new setup, although they kept stopping and saying "okay, ready for the next activity!" I had to explain that all the activities were out and that they could play with whatever they wanted to play with.

Their favorite activity of the day? FLIPPING THE EGG!!! I could not believe it!  It seemed so simple, but they loved getting some life skills practice in...especially using a real spatula.  Obviously that is a good theme to include in our stations/trays.

The horse pen was too difficult for them to figure out on their own, so we did this together.

Overall, I actually really enjoyed the concepts of the trays or stations.  I was able to quickly put them together and then for the rest of "school time" I could focus on playing with the boys instead of cleaning up each activity, getting the next activity ready, keeping them focused on what I wanted them to do instead of what they wanted to do.  And I think they really enjoyed being able to choose activities, as well as having me more focused on playing with them.  Instead of doing all the behind-the-scenes work during and in-between activities, I just snapped a few pictures as we went along and played, too.  It was definitely a nice change.

WEDNESDAY

I began setting up our stations while the boys were working on notebooks, and Alex immediately left his table to come play.  At first, I tried to persuade him to go back to Notebook time, but then I decided to just let him play.  Since his notebook is really just there so he has something to do while Jack works in his notebook, I knew it was no big deal.

Station 1: Old MacDonald's Farm Peek-a-boo and Music Time

I printed out this activity from Buggy and Buddy and laminated the little farm animals.  I glued on the red square flap in the middle for the boys to "hide" the animals for peek-a-boo play.  We also sang Old MacDonald, picking whatever animal was "hiding" each time.

Station 2: Farm Animal Play/Counting Practice

I gathered any farm animal toys we had for some farm animal play.  I also planned on counting the animals with the boys.

Station 3: Flipping an Egg

This activity was so popular yesterday that I decided to include it, again.

Station 4: Farm Matching

I printed out two copies of each of these cards from 1+1+1=1 and cut out one copy of each to use for matching purposes.

Station 5: Farm Puzzles

Alex worked on a simple, 12-piece, Little People farm puzzle I bought at a dollar store.  Jackson worked on a 30-piece Melissa & Doug barnyard puzzle.

They loved hiding the animals in the barn, and we sang through the "Old Macdonald" song multiple times together as they switched out the animal cards

The picture matching activity was also a big hit.

We played with the animal toys together, putting them into groups and counting them.

Alex made the connection to the Old Macdonald animal cards, so I had him match the cards to the corresponding toy.

We played with these activities and read a few "farm" books together for about 40 minutes or longer.  I was amazed at how calm the school atmosphere seemed to be with this setup.  Besides a few minor squabbles, the boys were very self-directed and kept themselves busy at the stations.  And, again, I was able to relax and play with them more (taking an occasional picture) since I wasn't constantly putting away and setting up the different activities.  A nice change, for sure! 

The boys finally began to tire of the staions, so we went back to the tables to do our letter identification worksheet and beginning sounds coloring sheet from In My World, using Bingo markers.  They were very calm at this point and had a great time focusing on these last few "table activities."

THURSDAY

We spent the morning shopping running errands, so school waited until the afternoon.  I was feeling creative, so I had thrown together a farm sensory bin and was at the stove making homemade finger paint when Alex came downstairs and discovered the sensory box.  I tried to make him wait until I had gathered the last few materials, but he was unstoppable! :)  I included our sticky sand as the base, our farmer and farm animals, a popsicle-stick pen, a barn made out of Mega-Bloks, plastic eggs, and the milk jugs and food baskets from our wooden train set.

The boys asked me a few times to play WITH them, so I finally did.  They liked packing the sand against the walls and using the plastic egg parts as scoops.  I played with the animals  ;)

While I finished up the finger paints, I settled the boys down on our kitchen table with a few worksheets.  Alex did the goat line draw and goat letter hunt worksheets from 1+1+1=1.

Jack did the Letters of All Sizes worksheet from The Measured Mom and the letter hunt worksheet from Confessions of a Homeschooler.

Then we put on our aprons and finger-painted a few coloring pages.  As expected, Alex kept saying "ew!" and "this is weird!" before finally moving on to something else.  He is our very sensory-sensitive kid (is that a phrase?), so I'm trying harder to do more sensory things with him.  Jackson stuck with it for longer, although I was the only one to complete my picture.  :)

FRIDAY

After Calendar Time and Notebook Time, we played Catch a Rainbow for some color review.  The boys love looking at all the pictures, and Alex can now match up the color cards with the color spaces on his card all by himself!

I used our shape matching cards to play a game with them.  They each got 5 of the colored shape cards and I had the shape identifier cards.  I would put one of my cards down and the boys checked to see if they had the matching card.  We also played a second time switching up which cards I had and which ones the boys had.

We hadn't done any beading for a few weeks, so I pulled out our pipe cleaner threaders and box of beads and we worked on those for a few minutes.  I tried to interest the boys in making patterns with the beads, but they just wanted to put the animals on.

I got a beginning sounds cut-and-paste activity from In My World, so I pulled that out for Jack to work on.  He wrote his name, traced some g's, and then I helped him cut out four pictures and he glued them next to their correct beginning sound.  Alex decided to help by coloring on each picture after it was glued.  Team work!

I've helped the boys develop a good scissor grip, but I have not done much for pen/pencil grip.  They are both whole-fisters, so I took a few minutes to do a mini-lesson on proper pencil grip.  I would LOVE to get some of these or these or these to practice grip, but until then we just make the thumb, pointer finger, and middle fingers a hungry monster that "eats" the bottom of the marker.  I developed an incorrect grip and my hand tires very easily when writing, so I would like to spend more time teaching them a better way.

And we finished the week off with reading Chicka Chicka Boom Boom and putting our letter G on the coconut tree.